his eyelids fluttering as his mind chased his dreams, his little sausage arms splayed out to his sides. He really was beautiful. From his tiny toes to his button nose, he was a perfect baby. Jemma wanted to love him, but she knew she didn’t deserve to, that she didn’t deserve her baby’s love. Ryan’s love.
‘He’s out for the count,’ Ryan said quietly.
‘Sorry I didn’t hear him,’ Jemma whispered.
Ryan pushed his hands into the pockets of his tracksuit bottoms. ‘You were out for the count too. Don’t worry about it. You need your sleep. You’re exhausted.’
She was, perpetually. She woke several times in the night when Liam was soundly sleeping, then slept too heavily to hear him when he woke. Never rested during the day.
‘You had another nightmare,’ Ryan said.
Jemma glanced away, trying to banish the images of Josh’s broken body from her mind.
‘You were crying out,’ he added, and let it hang.
She could feel his eyes on her. She didn’t look at him, reaching instead to brush Liam’s peachy cheek with the back of her hand.
‘Good-looking little bugger, isn’t he?’ Ryan commented after a second.
‘He is.’ Jemma smiled, marvelling at how peaceful he seemed, so different to the distressed tiny human being she could never seem to appease.
‘Doesn’t look much like me, does he?’ Ryan said after another heavy pause – and Jemma’s blood froze.
‘He does.’ She laughed nervously. ‘He looks just like you. He has your nose, and I’m sure his eyes are going to be hazel.’
Ryan considered. ‘I doubt it,’ he said after a second. ‘They’re a really intense blue. I’m thinking they’re going to stay that way.’
Jemma felt an icy dagger of foreboding pierce her heart. ‘He still looks like you,’ she offered weakly. ‘He even sleeps like you. Look.’
Ryan was looking. A deep furrow in his brow, he was studying Liam intently. Her mouth dry, nausea churning inside her, Jemma waited. He didn’t speak. The silence above the soft sound of her baby’s breathing was so profound, she was sure she could hear the foundations of her life crumbling.
Ryan eventually moved, bending to tuck Liam’s blanket gently to his chest. And then he turned to look at her, a long, penetrating gaze that chilled her to the bone.
Jemma tried to speak, but she couldn’t get the words past her constricted throat. She reached a hand to his arm, desperately needing reassurance, but Ryan flinched and pulled away. Still he didn’t say anything. Instead, he scanned her face for an agonising second, then turned to walk silently out of the nursery.
Thirty-Five
Cassandra
It had been an innocent gesture. A show of affection. Cassie tried to dismiss what she’d seen in the hall, but the niggling thought that Adam and Kim were colluding against her, the feeling that she was on the outside looking in, just wouldn’t leave her.
She was being paranoid. If she mentioned it, Adam would think she’d gone mad. He’d hugged the girl in a fatherly way, that was all. She tried to reassure herself as she prepared Samuel’s bath. It was the kind of person he was. He’d always been hands-on with Josh, never shying away from physical shows of emotion. She was blowing things out of proportion because of her own insecurities. He could hardly have shoved the girl away when she’d thrown her arms around him. And Kim would hardly have been quite so demonstrative in front of Cassie if she had eyes on her husband, would she?
It was nonsense. Adam was old enough to be her father. But then you often heard of older men sleeping with much younger women. Never the other way around. Her brow furrowed in contemplation as she lifted the bath from the sink to the work surface. She didn’t like the idea of the mixer tap anywhere near that darling little baby when she bathed him.
Her eyes flicked to the clock as she dried her hands and went to gather Samuel from his pram. What was keeping them? she wondered. Kim had arrived unannounced, telling them she thought the fuse box had blown and that she could smell burning, and Adam had dutifully gone to the cottage to investigate. Cassie wasn’t sure why Kim had had to go with him.
Honestly, what was the matter with her? She would be certifiable at this rate. Despairing of herself, she went over to the pram. She was glad Kim had gone, to be honest. It would give her and Samuel a chance to share some time together. She’d barely seen